The Effect of Self-Esteem on Bullying Involvement in Adolescence

 The Effect of Self-Esteem on Bullying Involvement in Adolescence

Bullying is a well-known problem in schools globally, with research indicating 10-15% of students grades three through sixth experiencing peer victimization weekly (Harachi et al., 1999). There is a vast depth of literature regarding how bullying in childhood and adolescents has a significant impact not only on several socio-emotional domains, such as self-regulation, social cognition, and prosocial skills (Juvonen et al., 2003), but also on school achievement (Hawker & Bouton, 2000) and psychological well-being (Pepler et al., 2008). Most of these findings are results of studies specifically looking at the bully and victim relationship, however, there is a common trope that those who are victims of bullying later become a bully, operationally known as bully-victims, and psychologists have posed several theories as to why this transition occurs which we will discuss in this paper. This phenomenon is especially interesting because in theory if you were bullied you would not unleash the same torment on a peer because you experienced that hardship firsthand. Some psychologists believe that self-esteem has a hand in motivating victims to become bullies later on, therefore, the goal of this paper is to synthesize prior research regarding the effects self-esteem has on early adolescents’ participation in bullying after experiencing victimization.

Bullying Involvement Types

            Bullying is defined as a form of aggressive behavior with several components including intent to harm, occurring repeatedly, and a power imbalance (Olweus, 1999). An important distinction in literature has been made to better operationalize bullying as either bullying perpetration which describes an individual’s act of aggression towards another or peer victimization which refers to the individual that has become the target of such aggression (Gendron et al., 2011). Further distinctions in bullying literature have been made such that psychologists have devised four groups a child may fall into: “pure victims”, “pure bullies”, “bully-victims” or “uninvolved” (Solberg et al. 2007). Pure victims and pure bullies then are the children who were solely either a perpetrator or a victim, compared to bully-victims which are children and adolescents who both were bullied and bullied others. Prior research indicates significantly more detrimental consequences for children who are bully-victims including emotional and behavioral dysregulations (Schwartz et al. 2001) such that their aggression, an underlying component to bullying, is more reactive rather than goal-oriented as seen in the pure bully group (Stephenson & Smith, 1989). Further, another component of bullying is power, either perceived or actual, in that those who bully are using their power over an individual deemed weaker, and this is where psychologists propose self-esteem mediates.

Self-Esteem

            To explore this mediation, the importance of self-esteem on an individual’s socio-emotional development is necessary to understand. Socio-emotional development is how children develop their self-concept which supports their emotional development, and through socialization, self-esteem can then be defined as the positive or negative evaluation of one’s worth (Rosenberg, 1979). Rosenberg (1979) further highlights the importance of self-esteem in a child’s development because it is the basis of social cognition that helps one navigate life by connecting with others in a meaningful and satisfying way. Those who present higher self-esteem are presumed to be psychologically happier and healthier compared to those with low self-esteem are believed to be psychologically distressed (Branden, 1994). In relation to bullying, evidence suggests a strong negative correlation between self-esteem and peer victimization (Boulton & Smith, 1994), however, the relationship between self-esteem and bullying perpetration are controversial which O’moore and Kirkham (2001) suggest is due to the lack of separation between pure bullies and bully-victims in prior literature.

Prior Research

            Pollastri et al. (2010) pioneered research on bully-victims in the context of bullying and self-esteem as they heeded O’moore and Kirkham’s (2001) warning that inclusion of bully-victims in the pure bully group in prior research was diluting and causing inconsistent results across comparison of evidence. Pollastri et al. (2009) designed their study to not only combat this common problem but also to address other limitations by using a longitudinal design. The study consisted of a total sample of 215 (122 girls and 93 boys) American children with an average age of 10.7 years at Time 1 and 12.2 at Time 2. During both assessment periods, the students completed a series of self-report questionnaires and were compensated with a $10 gift card to the local mall after each assessment period. To measure self-esteem the researchers utilized the Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC; Harter, 1985), based on its good reliability and validity (Granleese & Joseph, 1994), and specifically examined the subscale for global self-esteem. Further, to measure bullying and victimization Pollastri et al. (2009) used the Bullying Behavior and Peer Victimization Scales (BBPVS; Austin & Joseph, 1996) specifically designed to be integrated within Harter’s SPPC (1985).

The researchers found a main effect of bullying involvement type through one-way ANOVA analyses on data collected at Time 1 where students that were uninvolved in bullying reported the highest self-esteem scores, then pure bullies, pure victims, and the bully-victim group reporting the lowest scores (Pollastri, 2009). These findings were in line with Pollastri et al.’s (2009) initial hypothesis that the bully-victim group would have the lowest self-esteem at the beginning of the study which supported their goal of providing evidence that a distinction between pure bullies and bully-victims is necessary to draw further conclusions about bully involvement. With these findings, they further analyzed the effects of gender on the relationship between self-esteem and bully involvement type and found that girls in the pure bully and bully-victim group reported a significant increase in self-esteem over time compared to boys in these groups who reported no change over time (Pollastri et al., 2009).

Pollastri et al.’s (2009) findings support prior research conducted by Kaukiainen et al. (2002) that found children who bully have higher self-esteem compared to those that do not which later we will discuss how and why perpetrators maintain such high levels. They further bolstered the warning proposed by O’moore and Kirkham (2001) through their findings as well because there was a significant distinction in self-esteem levels between the pure bully group and the bully-victims which solidifies the importance of distinguishing these students in future studies to draw reliable evidence. This study specifically supported and laid foundational evidence to the importance of the relationship between the bully-victim group and self-esteem, but several limitations are evident including lack of specific analyses testing the mediating effects of self-esteem, however, their findings are vital in understanding the broader scope of this paper and to understand how other research conducted after this study utilized their findings.

A meta-analytic review facilitated by Tsaousis (2016) explored possible hypotheses regarding this link between bullying and self-esteem however, they solely focus on pure bullies and pure victims due to a lack of research on bully-victims’ self-esteem which they address as a limitation that could be included in replication. While this review does not directly analyze bully-victim evidence, they highlight two important hypotheses of bully perpetration that, if expanded could provide significant insight to self-esteem’s role in the bully-victim group. The first view of bully perpetration, initially proposed by Donnellan et al. (2005) and later supported by other research, is known as the Low-Self Esteem Hypothesis. Essentially, it suggests that antisocial and aggressive behaviors in children and early adolescents are an expression of their low self-esteem (Donnellan et al., 2005). Contrastingly, the Disputed Self-Esteem Hypothesis, formed by Baumeister et al. (2000), argues aggressive children participate in bully perpetration because their self-esteem is threatened or disputed by peers.

Tsaousis (2016) collected and analyzed 121 studies that met the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis and found a significant negative relationship between self-esteem and peer victimization that was moderate in magnitude, as well as a significant negative relationship between self-esteem and bully perpetration that was small in magnitude. The latter finding, although small in magnitude, still provides theoretical and practical significance in that it helps to straighten out inconsistent findings prior to O’moore and Kirkham’s (2001) suggestion for the pure bully and bully-victim differentiation that at the time dominated the body of knowledge on this topic.

Finally, and most notably, Tsaousis (2016) introduces the Threatened Egoism Theory as a potential direction for future research to dig deeper into bullying and specifically the pure bully group. However, I believe it could be an important mechanism in the bully-victim group because it argues bullying aggression stems from a psychological injury to one’s self-esteem (victimization) that they then feel the need to recover by perpetrating (Washburn et al., 2004).

To expand the proposition of the Threatened Egoism Theory as the explanation for self-esteem’s role in moderating the bully-victim transition, Choi and Park (2018) conducted a study solely focused on the bully-victim group, something that had yet to be done in bullying literature. The study collected data from a total sample of 3,660 Korean secondary students that participated in the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study (SELS; Seoul Education Research and Information Institute, 2011) facilitated by the Seoul Education Research & Information Institute (SERI), a similarly designed study to that of Pollastri et al. (2009), in both waves (7th to 8th grade). Students in the sample completed several measures including a modified Korean version of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire (OBQ; Olweus, 2007) to measure perpetration and victimization as it is known to be valid and reliable (Olweus, 2013). Additionally, a Korean shortened version of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was used to measure self-esteem as it too is known to be valid and reliable (Greenberger et al., 2003).

Choi and Park (2018) hypothesized that self-esteem plays a moderating role in the relationship between peer victimization and later bully perpetration in adolescence which would provide evidence in support of the Threatened Egoism Theory. As Tsaousis (2016) explained, this theory stems from a threat to one’s self-esteem, so the initial victimization would be seen as a threat to their self-view to the point where they would transition to bully perpetration as the perceived benefit of inflicting this aggression, as we previously discussed is about perceived power, towards peers would restore and maintain their high self-esteem. Analyses uncovered a significant positive association between victimization in the 7th grade and subsequent bully perpetration in the 8th grade for students with higher self-esteem in the 7th grade directly supports the Threated Egoism Theory as an explanation for this phenomenon (Choi & Park, 2018). Overall, this study provided concrete evidence of self-esteem as a moderating variable to understanding the motivation of the bully-victim group to perpetrate.

Discussion

            While the three studies discussed in this paper provided significant insight into the relationship between self-esteem and bullying, replication and further exploration is necessary for drawing more concrete conclusions on the topic. However, it is evident that self-esteem moderates the bully-victim group in contrast to pure bullies and pure victims which explained by the Threatened Egoism Theory could be useful in helping schools and teachers fight bullying as a whole. By understanding these concepts, especially how students with high self-esteem being victimized, the spread of bullying throughout schools could be combatted by supporting healthy and positive social cognition and prosocial skills so they do not feel the need to perpetrate as a way of restoring a positive self-view.

            Future research should work to expand the works presented in this paper on bully-victims specifically because as Tsaousis (2016) noted, there is a significant lack of literature on the topic yet existing literature on that group suggests them to exhibit more disturbed psychosocial functioning compared to pure bullies, pure victims and uninvolved children where there is a more extensive wealth of research. Further, it is vital to explore this group specifically because it is known that detrimental experiences, as bullying is, on socioemotional development leads to a higher likelihood of mental health issues later in life such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. While bullying is a household known problem in schools today, there is still much to discover on the topic that may greatly change the direction of school policy and advocacy to be more effective and productive.